Thursday, August the 12th, 2004
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Are you ready for a brand new beat? Summer's here, the time is right for dancing in the street. Ah, but you say you are not ready. You complain of indigestion, because last night you gorged yourself on a surfeit of lampreys washed down with six pints of goat's milk. It was Parsley's name-day celebration in the cavernous barn, and there was much carousing. You danced then, you protest, petulantly, and now all you want to do is lie abed groaning to yourself, perhaps sipping from a glass of invigorating salts. Leave me be, you whimper, leave me be. You think I am ignorant of the fact that Parsley is a cow, and that I find name-day celebrations for barnyard animals more than a little foolish. So up you get, the helicopter is waiting, and the pilot is impatient. He is in a foul mood because on this bright summer morning he has had a traumatic laundry incident, as can happen to any of us. It is high time you stirred from your bed, whether or not your belly feels like a nest of vipers, for there is a brand new beat, and we must fly away to that shrivelled and damp city beyond the mountains, and go dancing in the street. I am not being unkind. Although it is your job to check the manifest, I have already done so. I rose at four in the morning to make sure the box of flags was properly packed. Do not give me that pitiful look as I toss your cap and bells on to your blanket and tell you to get ready at once. I will brook no further nonsense. Let us go then, you and I, and commune with Terpsichore in that far city, where our 'copter is due to land in the car park of the glue factory, where I shall play tunes on my crumhorn, and you shall cavort and reel and dance and dance and dance.